
The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could be broken only by relentlessly using all our force and energy by day and night. On April 26, Stroop reported to his superiors in Berlin: I have seen the Jewish defense of the ghetto in all its strength and glory. One of our companies held its position for forty minutes, while the other one lasted-upwards of six hours. What happened exceeded our boldest dreams. On April 23, Mordechai Anielewicz, commander of the ZOB, wrote: The Germans retreated at once to the ghetto entrance, carrying dozens of wounded with them.” 1 Simcha Rotem, a survivor, later told filmmaker Claude Lanzmann: “During the first three days of fighting, the Jews had the upper hand. But the resisters were able to fight off Stroop’s soldiers for the first few days, and they were able to hold out under siege for four weeks. The approximately 750 Jewish resisters had two submachine guns, a handful of rifles, and homemade explosives. Stroop had 2,100 soldiers with 13 heavy machine guns, 69 handheld machine guns, 135 submachine guns, several howitzers, and 1,358 rifles. German General Jürgen Stroop arrived in Warsaw ready to wipe out all opposition within a single day as a birthday gift to his Führer. Surviving Jews made preparations for a major revolt.Īpril 19, 1943, was the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover and also the eve of Hitler’s birthday. Nazi commanders retaliated by executing 1,000 Jews in the main square of the ghetto, but they also briefly stopped the deportations. When a new round of deportations began in January 1943, the ZOB struck back, firing on German troops and helping other ghetto residents into prearranged hiding places. They received very few such weapons but were determined to do as much as possible with what they had. They reached out to partisan groups and the Polish underground for weapons.

Some of the “remnants,” as they called themselves, formed the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB), or Jewish Fighting Organization. Only 55,000 remained, mainly men and women without children because children and the elderly had been deported. In 1942, about 300,000 Jews had been deported from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. The Difference between Knowing and Believing
